


In and Out of Luck

by kuro49



Category: White Collar
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-09
Updated: 2013-06-09
Packaged: 2017-12-14 09:52:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/835570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuro49/pseuds/kuro49
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neal doesn’t like violence, but he understands the necessity of it too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In and Out of Luck

**Author's Note:**

> So I just really enjoy the prospect of a non-violent Neal doing something violent (for all the right reasons).

Neal is a criminal.

Not of the very worst kind, but he is up there among the top of the lists. He is the type that steals you for all the best things you have, and then has you eating out of his hand too. The type that does it for the sheer thrill, just because he can, when you lick his palms clean.

Neal is a criminal.

That he can’t deny.

That he doesn’t even try, not when he has plausible deniability on so many other fronts. Even when this kind of statement gives him an air of danger that he never tries to associate with himself, Neal is willing to admit to this, in his roundabout way. It’s not a yes, but it’s not a no, and for Neal, that’s really as close to a full confession as you can get.

“You’re a convicted felon.”

Peter’s retort is made to another version of the same old argument they have had a thousand times over. So Neal laughs, and he smiles, and then he replies, looking like he’s got a heart of gold beyond that wicked silver tongue.

“Took you long enough to figure that out, Peter.”

Neither pretends they can’t see the truth in that.

 

Neal sees it first.

It is not unlike the holster that Peter wears, the one that he wears like Neal wears his Devore. Like it’s an armour, a uniform, and like tension that pulls taut across their shoulders and over the broad of their backs, Neal sees their perp pull a gun.

His eyes don’t widen at the flash of cold black metal, he doesn’t even draw in a quick, sharp breath.

Neal eases into a widened stance, smiles a little nervous thing that twists to settle just right over the curve of his lips. He doesn’t see how Peter’s frown deepens or how he feels fear for a fraction of a second when Neal comes to stand in front of him. Neal thinks he can probably imagine it perfectly though.

Neither of them are wired, and his watch doesn’t have its custom GPS. He has himself, and Peter, as backup. Peter, whose identity has just been dragged into the light, like the skeletons tumbling over themselves when the closet doors are thrown wide open.

Neal faces a man he can’t talk down.

 

Of course, Neal can try.

But there is an irrational glint in the perp’s eyes, the kind that tells Neal he shouldn’t even try. The man isn’t crazy, but he is paranoia at its worst, the kind that twists on itself until there’s nothing left. He doesn’t glance back at Peter, doesn’t give him a single warning as much as he wants to. By now, Peter ought to know that Neal is, at best, unsuspecting, and at worst, unexpected.

And Peter has always known Neal best.

He is fast, this is wrong, but there is still a thrill when he steps forward to twist the gun out from the man’s grip. He can hear the blood rushing, adrenaline in the making, pushing forward as he catches sight of the man reaching for his second firearm in the other holster.

Neal doesn’t want Peter to see him in this light, never wants the other man to know there is this side of Neal Caffrey too. But the thrill only thrums harder, like a string pulled tighter, at the show and tell he is about to perform for his own audience of one.

Neal raises an arm to bring it down, hard, to hit the man over the back of his head with his own damn gun. And he watches as the human body stutter once before slumping down to the ground, right before his feet.

Neal has it cocked, aimed, and ready to fire.

(The motion fluid, practiced, like he’s done it a thousand times over.)

It is only when the man cease to move that Neal lowers his hand. And the sound of Peter standing up behind him is louder than any bullet that has yet to be fired.

 

Neal doesn’t like violence, but he understands the necessity of it too.

He isn’t brutal as he is quick, and he has always been very, very quick. He doesn’t know the kind of self-defence that has men twice his size landing on their backs with their breaths knocked out of their lungs. He only knows the kind of self-defence that has kept him alive all this time.

And if Peter knows half the things Neal suspects him to know about his past works and cons, Peter won’t be surprised either.

 

“Should I be worried about what I saw today?”

Neal turns from watching Jones heave away another box of evidence, he is leaning on the side of the Taurus, waiting for all of this to come to a finish, for someone to take him home. He turns and there is Peter standing next to him.

“If it helps, I can pretend I had no idea what I was doing.” Neal tries the motion of a shrug, but eventhe movement of his shoulders beneath the layer of his finest Devore can't get Peter to look away from his eyes. “If it helps, I can get a psych eval too.”

“…Like a psych eval means anything in Neal Caffrey’s file.”

Peter shakes his head, lips twisting into the slightest smile before he hands Neal back his tracker. This might be a reminder, or a warning, or something different all together.

Neal supposes he can try to make sense of it all but he likes that he doesn’t have to. So he flashes the world a grin worthy of the Caffrey name and snaps it around his ankle, once more.

 

Neal tries not to think about what Peter must think of him.

But that only serves to make him think harder about the same damn thing, he sleeps to the thought and wakes to it. And it hasn’t even been a week since that case.

So he takes Peter to lunch instead.

 

“Do you want to see?”

He asks his question, like it makes perfect sense as he finishes the last of his sandwich. He brushes the last crumb from the corner of his lips with his thumb and stands up from where they are sitting in the crowded plaza in front of the FBI building. Peter thinks he only knows half of what Neal is talking about.

“Do you want to see?” He asks, again, like it’s a plead he will make for a third time, and then a fourth, if Peter doesn’t say _yes_. So Peter nods, something infinitesimally small, and thinks he knows exactly what Neal is trying to do.

It is nothing, and it is everything.

It is in a moment, and also in all the previous ones before this. His stance shifts, like he is easing all his weight into the balls of his feet. It happens in an instant, like a flicker of a switch hidden somewhere deep within his complicated head, as well as it happens all in one slow transition. Peter blinks and Neal is a different person. The kind of person that everyone else turns their heads for. The crowds around them don’t disperse, but it seems as though every pair of eyes are, all of a sudden, drawn to him and that demeanour.

Neal smiles.

They stare.

And even the cars seem to slow, not draw to a stop, though it does seem as though Neal can put forth another ounce of effort and have the world stop at his feet. At least, in that moment, anything seems to be possible in the face of Neal Caffrey. He’s not demanding, or even asking, for the attention, he simply has it. Like it is the most natural thing in the world.

Peter can’t look away, not when his smile is something gleaming of promises and wickedness, nothing that hurts, and exactly nothing that you can trust either.

“…Is this supposed to reassure me?” Peter asks, and even to his own ears, his voice sounds faint. The thin pulling smile on the edge of Neal’s lips is telling, it is also very much misleading. “Is it working?”

“Not at all.”

Neal blinks, before he lets out a sharp laugh that isn’t any part charms. He shrugs his shoulders and everything falls with the motion. Neal Caffrey becomes Neal, once more.

“Still worth a try though.”

 

It’s not the shooting that is the problem. He can fire a gun just as well. It’s the potential to kill. The potential that he can commit mistakes he can’t fix.

If he steals money, he can make counterfeit bills. If he takes priceless jewels, he can replace it with something looking every part real, maybe even without the decades of wear and blemishes. And if he makes off with a painting in the middle of the night, he can paint a forgery in its place.

He can paint a thousand more.

But with life, he can’t create the living with the dead.

 

Diana has just left, and Jones, ten minutes before. The conference room is lighted in fluorescent white that washes the colours out of everything.

“Neal,” Peter is standing at the head of the table, holster empty but pulling tight across his back, “it doesn’t matter.”

“What?” His CI glances up from the profile of a potential suspect and quirks his head to the side, it is every part docile and genuine confusion. It is also a very good mask.

“The fact that you pistol-whipped our perp in the back of his head.”

“…Are you sure?”

“You don’t like guns, right?”

Neal nods.

“But you can use one, right?”

Neal nods, again.

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Do I think you are dangerous? Yes. But you’ve always been a danger with that reckless brain of yours. Would I prefer Neal Caffrey with one less skill set? Probably. But I can’t exactly make you unlearn how to handle a gun, much like I can’t _make_ you forget about that Matisse at the Met.” Peter gives him a knowing look, more at the last thing on his list before he continues, eyes softer with the kind of thing that Neal supposes he can pretend to be understanding. “So you can stop trying to convince me that you’re still all harmless party tricks and play pretend, Neal.”

He turns away like that is enough to hide the curve over his lips. He smiles, and in the reflection of the glass, Peter knows, it’s even halfway to the truth.

“I’ll see what I can do about that.”

“You go do that.”

(Neal might be a criminal, but there are always worse things to be.)

 XXX Kuro


End file.
